The Triads and the Tongs

aka: Triad

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"Triads had existed in China for centuries and were the most misunderstood, most complex, and most dangerous criminal organizations to infect the modern world. Chinese Triads made the Sicilian Mafia look amateurish."

Subject of a thousand Hong Kong Films and a recurrent trope in Western Yellow Peril stories, the Triads started life as a Ming-restorationist Secret Society during the 1760s. There was a precedent for this sort of thing working, given the Red Turban society and rebellion which fractured the Yuan Empire and allowed the Ming to conquer China in the late 14th century, though said society's original intent had actually been to restore the Song Empire. Accordingly the Triads were associated with the colour red and the name 'Hong' because it was part of the first Ming Emperor's reign name (Hongwu, lit. 'superlative martial accomplishment) and the name of one of the society's founders. From the beginning they created an official mythology which claimed that had actually been created during the Ming-Qing wars of the 17th century, after the burning of the southern Shaolin temple, by five survivors of the battle. Some even claimed that one of them was Jee Sin, who was the master of the 5 Elders of Southern Chinese kung fu. After contributing to the fall of the Qing Empire in the 1911 revolution, without resurrecting the Ming (as had been their original intention), the Triads now found themselves without a purpose and there was a split between the Mainland and overseas branches. The Mainland group is what we now commonly refer to as the Triads, while the overseas group became known as the Hongmen. The mainland Triads now turned to crime as they were unable to reenter normal society. After the Communist takeover, many Triad members moved to Hong Kong and Taiwan to escape new measures against organized crime. Hong Kong's Triad problems peaked in the 1970s, helped by police corruption.

The Hongmen is divided into 180 branches, and is arguably a Freemason-like organization, with an emphasis on patriotism, given the circumstances of its origin. Distinguished politicians such as Sun Yat Sen and Chiang Kai Shek were senior members. It shares traditions with the Triads, since they were one and the same not that far back. They are illegal in Hong Kong due to their relationship with the Triads, but are legal in Taiwan as a secret society. Not surprising, since President Chiang Kai Shek was a member. They exist in China as a political party, and hold the single non-communist ministerial seat. It has branches in other overseas Chinese communities, where it is referred to as Chinese Freemasonry. Its membership is rapidly aging with the change in the times.

Another group are the Tongs, modeled on the Triads, which arose in the US in response to the need for support organizations for new immigrant Chinese, as well as taking charge of protecting their members from violence from other groups. Some Tongs are fully legitimate organizations. Others, not so much. Many Triad members would join Tongs on reaching America, causing some Tongs to be strongly influenced by the Triads.

Chinese secret societies are guaranteed to exist anywhere in the world with a significant Chinese immigrant population, from Australia to L.A.

The patron god of the Triads is none other than Guan Yu (of both literary and video game note). He is also the patron god of the police... and a patron god for business. Basically, Guan Yu is the god for any high risk endeavour where you want trustworthy 'brothers' watching your back.

In the second season of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, they show up in an episode where Mokoto visits the territory primarily occupied by (generally Korean and Chinese) refugees. They have a dignified Don, but the lower ranked gangsters are all common thugs.

In Mayu Shinjo's Haou Airen, an Ordinary High-School Student named Kurumi Akino saves the life of a handsome stranger and nurses him back to health. It turns out he's Uon Hakuron (a.k.a. Li Shen Wong), a dangerous and sexy Triad leader, and soon after said incident she's kidnapped from school and taken to Hong Kong. Did we mention Mayu Shinjo has a thing for Bastard Boyfriends?

A two-part episode of Noir pits the team against the Hong Yiban triad.

In Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, Iron Lady Stephanie Luio and her group are all but stated to be associated with the Triads. She has goons at the ready and her company is also a front for all sorts of illegal activity.

This is Hong Kong City. You can't trust anyone.

Comicbooks

In Judge Dredd, the judicial system of Hong Tong (the future Hong Kong) has been largely infiltrated and taken over by Triads, much as the Hondo-Cit (Japan) Judges were overtaken by the Yakuza.

The Triads play a prominent role in the Corto Maltese book Corto Maltese in Siberia (Corte sconta detta Arcana), as well as in the Animated Adaptation based on the book, Corto Maltese: La Cour secrète des Arcanes.

New York's Chinatown Tongs are a major force in DMZ, especially due to their cunning leader Wilson.

Sin City mentions Tongs being present in the town but they have yet to appear in the series.

Darcy Parker in Strangers in Paradise supposedly had Triad connections. Since she began her criminal empire in her native Hong Kong, this is not surprising.

The villains in The Shadow Hero are a Tong that has degenerated into a mere criminal gang, although the ending implies that it may regain its honour under a new leader.

In The Couriers, Special was previously a minion of the NYC Triad gangster Johnny Funwrecker, whose downfall at her hands is presented in the final graphic novel of the series, "The Ballad of Johnny Funwrecker". Additionally, the second novel features Triad thugs working for a corrupt People's Liberation Army officer.

Election, and its sequel Triad Election in which the oldest HK Triad kills and maims more of its own members than the rival gang.

A Better Tomorrow. Mark Gor (Big Brother Mark) inspired a generation of Chinese kids to walk around in dusters and sunglasses while chewing on toothpicks. Mark Gor (and every "criminal" that Chow Yun-fat played afterwards) is a romantic in a cynical world, who steadfastly holds onto notions of brotherhood and honor, and would gladly lay down his life to protect innocent women and children.

Fu Manchu often works with/controls these groups in films which feature him.

The 1985 film Year Of The Dragon (based on the novel by Robert Daley, screenplay by Oliver Stone and director Michael Cimino) tells of the struggle between a controversial New York police captain and an ambitious young Triad member, both of whom upset the 'live and let live' status quo between the Triads and the police.

In Kung Fu Hustle, several gangs are causing trouble in Shanghai with the Axe gang being the most powerful one. In fact, the beginning starts with a small gang bullying a police station, only to get eliminated by the Axe gang.

Romeo Must Die has an African American gang and a Chinese gang butting head over waterfront property.

The second and third Rush Hour movies deal with the Triads. Of particular note are the Parisian Triad members who don't even speak Chinese. The first movie has a Chinese gang, but they are working for an Evil Brit.

Buster Keaton silent film The Cameraman, in which Buster the newsreel cameraman goes to film a parade in Chinatown and winds up capturing a shootout between rival gangs (the "Tong War"), may be the Trope Maker.

Not the Trope Maker, since Sessue Hayakawa had starred in The Tong Man in 1919.

The French film Les Anges Gardiens has a club owner trying to rescue his late friend's son (and millions) from the Triads.

Kick-Ass and Justice Forever crash a Triad-run poker game to take down a human trafficker early in the second movie. The Motherfucker also hires an ex-Triad enforcer (whom he dubs Genghis Carnage) to be part of the Toxic Mega Cunts.

Literature

In David Wingrove's Chung Kuo series, the Triads become increasingly powerful in the lower Levels

The Yellow Peril variant is referenced, and averted, in East of Eden, in which Adam Trask's Chinese servant Lee tells Adam and Samuel about going for help to his "family association".

In Skeleton Key a branch of the Triads called the Big Circle attempts to set up a betting scam at Wimbledon, but Alex uncovers the scam and ruins it. A Big Circle agent later attempts to assassinate Alex in revenge.

Part of the backstory of the titular doctor of Dr. No. He started out as the treasurer for a Tong, before running away with their money to continue his career.

Live-Action TV

In Deadwood, a Tong gang supported by George Hearst wrests control of Celestial Alley from the local strongman Mr. Wu, with the goal of supplying Chinese prostitutes and opium to white residents. Eventually Al Swearengen helps negotiate for Wu to retake control of Celestial Alley and slaughter the new Tongs.

The Doctor Who story "The Talons of Weng-Chiang" has the Tong of the Black Scorpion as Mooks serving their Physical God Weng-Chiang (who turns out to be a psychotic time-traveller from the future who bamboozled them with high-tech tricks).

A really ridiculous episode of Psych depicted a kidnapping related to two rival Triads in Santa Barbara. Yes, two Triads in Santa Barbara.

A group of Tong serves as the main villain in the "The Blind Banker" episode of Sherlock though it's referred to as an ancient Chinese crime syndicate rather than a Chinese-American organization a little over a century old ( and, as with the previous episode's villain, it turns out that Moriarty's The Man Behind TheDragon Lady).

An episode of Castle features a tong. This example is unusual in that a character mentions that most tongs are legitimate organizations.

In an episode of Arctic Air the police are looking for a hitman from Vancouver who is trapped in the arctic community when a snowstorm stops all traffic in and out of town. One of the older mechanics starts telling stories about how nasty and deadly Triad assassins are. His stories are mostly nonsense and the hitman is actually Caucasian and working for a biker gang rather than any Chinese crime group.

The mission that qualified Nikita for active duty involved the assassination of Victor Han, a member of the Department of Homeland Security in its early days. In actuality, the assassination was faked in order to remove Han, a triad member, from the intelligence community without pissing off said triad overmuch. Fast forward to the present day, and Nikita lays into a triad's New York operations only to discover Victor Han is in charge.

The Triads are one of the biggest powers in Shadowrun, and effectively have all of Hong Kong in their pockets. The Yakuza are engaged in a vicious rivalry with them in San Francisco.

The Triad Sourcebook, one of the few supplements for Hong Kong Action Theatre, is an invaluable resource on the Triads and their use in Hong Kong action games in general.

A common enemy and occasionally ally in the contemporary juncture of Feng Shui. As with other criminal syndicates in the Feng Shui setting, they're largely controlled by the Ascended.

The Martian Triads are one of the major inner-system crime organisations in the GURPSTranshuman Space setting. While they do the usual organised crime stuff (loansharking, smuggling, protection), the bulk of their income comes from selling restricted and illegal bioroids, and they're known to have at least one Evilutionary Biologist on staff.

In Eclipse Phase a few Triads are essentially the only ethnic syndicates to survive the Fall thanks to China's significant presence on Mars beforehand. The few survivors of the Mafia and Yakuza and Cartels coalesced into the Night Cartel.

Videogames

The Triads and the Tongs have been featured in every 3D Grand Theft Auto game thus far. You only work with them in San Andreas, however, though you get to wipe them out in GTA3.

The DS game Chinatown Wars obviously features them far more heavily than other GTA games. The player is the nephew of a triad leader.

The prequel Deus Ex: Human Revolution features the Harvesters, a gang in the fictional two-tiered Chinese city called Hengsha, who "harvest" mechanical augmentations from others. Their leader is Tong Si Hung, the father of Tracer Tong from the first and second games.

The Dark Elf mafia in The Elder Scrolls is called Camonna Tong. The (legal) assassins' guild is the Morag Tong — both of these come from Tong being Dunmer for 'Guild' (Morag means 'Forester'. What Camonna means was never explained).

Given their focus on ancestor worship and ability to summon said ancestors' spirits, it's likely that in this game's verse the Tsoo actually came first and that a lot of the Triads were willingly assimilated.

The Bangkok mission set in Mafia Wars has the player choose to ally him or herself with the Triads or the Yakuza, affecting which missions become available.

Stranglehold, in keeping with its cinematic predecessor Hard Boiled, has Tequila going up against two of these along with a Russian crime syndicate.

Rubi of WET travels to Hong Kong on several of her missions, and thus has to fight these guys several times during the course of the game.

The Triads play a semi-major role in the last 3rd of the plot of Mafia II.

The White Mountain Triad is a minor faction in Alpha Protocol, and its leader, Hong Shi, is a source of intel, missions, and resources during the first half of the Taipei mission hub.

The very first set of levels in Hitman: Codename 47 involve stirring turmoil between the Red Dragon and Blue Lotus Triads by killing key members during negotiation attempts as part of a plan to get close to and assassinate the Red Dragon leader, Lee Hong.

Sleeping Dogs is set in Hong Kong's criminal underbelly, with the protagonist Wei Shen being an undercover cop trying to infiltrate the Sun On Yee gang.

The Getaway features a London branch of the Triads, and it's spin-off "Gangs Of London" has the Water Dragon Triad as one of the five playable factions.

Strider Hiryu confronts a large-scale Chinese Mafia terrorist strike in the first stage of Strider 2.

Far Cry 4: Pagan Min, as well as his top lieutenant Yuma Lau and most of his army, originally belonged to a Triad-run drug cartel headed by Pagan's father operating in the Golden Triangle. It's mentioned that after Pagan killed his father and usurped control of the gang, he butted heads with the Triad's "old guard" for dominance, but lost and was run out of Southeast Asia as a result.

In Akatsuki Blitzkampf, the Scary Black Man Wei and the Dark Action Girl Marilyn Sue Dae Jie are members of the fictional Black Hand Triad under the leadership of a man named In Fu. Their Story Modes are kickstarted when In-Fu is murdered by Marilyn herself, under orders of the witch Mycale. It's also strongly implied that In Fu was a clone of the Big Bad Murakumo, and was offed because he was developing his own agenda.

Naturally present in the Chinatown level of Dead to Rights. They return for the 2010 reboot, though for some reason most of them, including their boss, have a Monster Clown motif as well.

Shadowrun Returns: Hong Kong, given the setting, features them pretty heavily. Your main benefactor and boss, Kindly Cheng, is a Straw Sandal (a middle-manager) of the fictional Yellow Lotus triad and the background lore mentions an escalating turf war between Yellow Lotus and (also fictional) Red Dragon. Several of your runs involve hits on the Red Dragon, like kidnapping one of their Red Poles (a military commander) and pulling a False Flag Operation to put heat on them from a Mega Corp..

ASH: The Onyx Eye tong are a crime syndicate and a villainous martial arts school.

Western Animation

The Legend of Korra has Triad groups of bending criminals that mix traditional Triad elements and imagery with that of 1920's American mobsters. Most of the focus is on the Triple Treat Triad, which accepts members of all three main bending disciplines, but we've also seen the Agni Kai Triad (firebenders), the Red Monsoon Triad (waterbenders) and the Terra Triad (earthbenders). These gangs have a large amount of influence in the poorer areas of Republic City.

It's safe to say that Pandabubba from Xiaolin Showdown and his underlings fall under here.

A few Triad members appear in "Sneak Peek", an episode of Batman Beyond, where the Triad leader Jimmy Lin attempts to talk to the DA, and is filmed by journalist Ian Peek.

Time marches on. A "Tong" in Chinese can mean group, organization, association, club, etc. The likelihood of Tongs containing members who speak Chinese (or at least were ethnically Chinese born) is high, but the odds of it being a criminal organization is no higher than an Italian Restaurant today being a Mob front.

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